Russia warns of cyber attacks on its banks

Russia's Federal Security Service has accused foreign spy agencies of plotting to destabilise the country's banking system.

Russia says it has uncovered a plot by foreign spy agencies to sow chaos in Russia's banking system via a wave of cyber attacks and fake social media reports about banks going bust.

Russia's domestic intelligence agency, the Federal Security Service, said the servers to be used in the alleged cyber attack were in the Netherlands and registered to a Ukrainian web hosting company called BlazingFast.

The attack, which was to target major national and provincial banks in several Russian cities, was meant to start on December 5, the FSB said in a statement.

"It was planned that the cyber attack would be accompanied by a mass send-out of SMS messages and publications in social media of a provocative nature regarding a crisis in the Russian banking system, bankruptcies and license withdrawals," it said.

"The FSB is carrying out the necessary measures to neutralise threats to Russia's economic and information security."

The statement did not say which countries' intelligence agencies were behind the alleged plot.

Russia's central bank said it was aware of the threat and was in contact with the security services.

Anton Onoprichuk, director of Kiev-based BlazingFast, said neither the FSB nor any other intelligence agency had been in touch with his company.

Asked if his servers could be used to mount a cyber attack he said: "Technically it is possible. It is possible with any hosting company, where you rent a server. You can attack whatever (you want) from it and in 99 per cent of cases it will become known only after the event."

Russia has been on high alert for foreign-inspired cyber attacks since US officials accused the Kremlin of being involved in hacks on Democratic party emails during the US presidential election.

Since then, there have been a number of cyber attacks affecting Russian institutions, though it is unclear if they were linked to the row between Moscow and Washington.